


the hush moment

by magtitude (MMagpieMcCorkle)



Category: Silent Hill (Video Game Series)
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, Gen, Homophobia, Horror, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, In Media Res, Lesbophobia, Major Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 20:51:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19980328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MMagpieMcCorkle/pseuds/magtitude
Summary: The library's open. There's no-one else around. They hope.





	the hush moment

**Author's Note:**

> A snippet of something I have in the works (read: my brain, not yet on paper or electronic words)
> 
>  **warnings** : mentioned/implied attempted sexual assault with a lesbophobic lean, other lesbophobia & homophobia mentioned/implied/referenced (as well as compulsory heterosexuality/heteronormativity), suicide mentioned --- i tried to keep at least most of these implicit rather than explicit (except for the suicide warning, which is more of a hypothetical scenario explicitly stated, but still)

The fog tastes like a jacuzzi electrical fire's smoke, like when she was twelve and the neighbours had gone on vacation to the Bahamas or something and had apparently left their outdoor kit running. Mom had panicked like a fluttery bat when she had to call the fire brigade. Now, the taste coats the insides of Lucy's cheeks, her gums and teeth seemingly slathered with the thickness of it, like she'd walked right up to the fire and stuck her tongue out, all madwoman.

She's trying to run _away_ from it. Cillian mentioned a library somewhere in town but she's got no fucking clue where it is, hasn't even got a map, and she's just running fuelled by pure panic and a will to live, a need to stay sane. ( _There's no such thing as **monsters** , my silly-billy._) No such thing as a man who keeps walking even after setting himself on fire and started to chase her, laughing with outstretched hands and his fly undone. No chants of _come back baby, come back baby, come back baby_. Pretty girl, birthing hips, find yourself a good man to marry and have lots of little grandchildren for Mommy. Spoil them little bastards rotten, spoil them to death in the crib, spoil them spoil them spoil them while Lucy hangs herself in the attic of the neat little with the pretty little garden with the white picket fence while Husband is at Work, working for the Money. Another housewife dead, how sad.

Lucy's still running even though it hurts, even though she wants to collapse and cry herself to sleep and wake up at home in Chicago in her and her mom's apartment and Mom's coming around to the idea of a lesbian for a daughter instead of a birthing machine to carry on the genetic line. Yeah, she'd like to just take it easy instead of running with lungs short of air, panicking for a library when she has no idea what it looks like.

"LUCY!"

A familiar voice, shouting from her left. A howl turning into a scream from behind ( _how far behind? safe? going to die?_ ). She trips over her own feet. How so like a shitty horror movie protagonist! Honestly! Her hands are skinned by asphalt, her jeans scuff at the knees. A familiar pale and freckled hand, then arm helps her up, the stinging sudden and unwelcome in her palms and knees. _Try not to think about how else it might've turned out_ , but she thinks it anyway, her breath coming in staccato hiccups. Panic.

Cillian looks like he's been strung and kept together by wire, any muscle lean and spare against his otherwise lanky frame, and his limp in his left leg doesn't help matters either, not when he needs to be able to outpace whatever's after him ( _and there **is** something after him, as there is something after her_). Lucy's still surprised when he's able to pick her up in a fireman's carry, and hurries into that _godforsaken motherfucking library_ that she must've passed at least twice. Or maybe not at all, because everything in this shithole of a town looks shuttered up and brickworked all the same. And no-one would answer, no doors would yield, everywhere seemingly abandoned under the thick taste of ashy fog. She spits once Cillian slams the doors shut ( _silly-billy might hear that and kill me and fuck me, we're dead, oh god, oh god, shut up be quiet, oh god_ ), the taste making her retch.

"Lucy?" His tone is hushed now as he comes near, one hand on the loosely-attached flashlight and walkie-talkie. "Oh god, Lu, you alright?"

She shook her head and swatted at him, still spitting gobbets of what _looks_ like black ash onto the brown-orange tiled floor. He backs off with a sharp inhale, and probably a pinched pair of eyebrows. She wonders if he knows something about this town, and decides an interrogation would do no good -- this town is **Hell** , she's sure, and it'd only work to destroy them both if she took a side against her only ally ( _when did he get downgraded from a friend?_ ). She only pays half of her attention to where Cillian steps away to as she spits out the last of the black and now-inky residue. At least it's not white. Lucy almost cries at the thought. Cry-laughter, almost, but the panic's left her numb, left her legs aching from the running.

Cillian returns with a plastic cup full of clear water; she half-remembers the repeated fills-and-empties from what must be a nearby water fountain, and notices that the water appears clear. Thankful for at least the illusion of untouched water, she gulps it down, swishing it around her mouth and teeth and gums.

"Something happened to you down there." An educated guess barely disguised as a question, Cillian's tone deflated like a popped balloon. She nods. He doesn't ask any more, even with his equally burning need to know what the fuck is going on, the same as her own. No, an interrogation would do no good, but sharing what they know might. But only after they've recovered some, after Lucy shakes off the tremors and the want to cry and curl up into a fetal position.

"There's nothing in here." Right now, he means, because it's just a matter of time. "And I've got a couple things we can use to defend ourselves." She hopes he's still got that axe -- all metal, no wood, should stand a chance so long as he doesn't lose it. "And some more food and water." He sounds panicked himself -- barely, like it's fraying the edges of his voice. "And... and..."

When she looks up, finally, she sees that he's looking at the noticeboard in the foyer where they still are. Or, rather, staring beyond it. Like he's lost, his mouth seeming to move, but only a clicking coming out.

Her voice is still hoarse, timid. "Cillian?"

Like a broken spell, he comes back, surprise on his face, then irritation at the twinge in his leg because he's been standing for too long. He plonks back down on one of the foyer's benches, kneading at the epicentre of the pain in his leg. "I was just trying to think," he says, as if to assure her that he wasn't sinking more than he was continuing his thought, "if I had anything else, but my brain's coming up empty right now." Then, "Oh, actually -- I saw a girl before."

"A girl?"

"Yeah, like twelve, I think. Yeah, she said she was nearly thirteen." A sudden thought seemed to cross his mind, then apparent dismissal; it worries her. "I think she was... her name was Diletta, I think. Dark brown hair, dark-- I think she had dark eyes--"

"I haven't seen her."

"No?" Worry is plain and concrete on his face. "She-- she saw something, said the 'monster' was trying to get her."

"She might be OK." Lucy thinks it might just be another of the town's puppets. But she might be wrong, and being wrong might cost them both.

"Maybe." Cillian doesn't sound convinced.

She needs a little help off the floor, her hands and knees ( _don't think about it, but **do** think about it_) still stinging, and he still needs a moment to make sure the pain isn't going to come back and bite him at the most inopportune moment, and both head towards the computer booths where Cillian's held the food, water, and weapons. Bread, mostly, and snack bars he must've devastated a vending machine for; the all-metal axe, a wooden bat, a heavy-looking wrench, and a police officer's pistol with additional ammo set aside. She doesn't ask.

When he slumps down into a seat ( _it seems the least painful way for him to sit down, instead of 'taking it easy'_ ), she asks, "Did anything happen to you?" Lucy is starkly aware of her half-looming over him and the table, and takes note of the way he does not look her in the eyes, the way he hesitates then bites into a slice of bread. Avoidance. She understands, but they need to understand what's at play in this Hell of a town.

"Cillian--"

"Please." His voice is meek. Begging for his life.

She wonders if it was anything like hers ( _like William_ ).

**Author's Note:**

> comments & (helpful!) critique are welcomed!


End file.
